NEW YORK – Siemens Healthineers and diagnostics firm Advanced Biological Laboratories said Monday that the firms have signed an agreement that will let ABL manufacture and commercialize a portfolio of PCR testing products that integrate technologies owned by Siemens.
The agreement involves the licensing and transfer of know-how and intellectual property rights from Siemens subsidiary Fast Track Diagnostics, which Siemens shuttered in 2024. Financial and other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
ABL said that it intends to use the technologies involved in the agreement to commercialize up to 38 molecular testing products under the ABL UltraGene label. It noted that the technologies will let it offer single-target and syndromic tests for applications including respiratory infections, gastroenteritis, meningitis, hepatitis, tropical diseases, sexually transmitted infections, early childhood diseases, and infections specific to immunosuppressed patients.
Through that expanded portfolio, ABL intends to offer a comprehensive, platform-agnostic menu of molecular tests for infectious diseases, the company said. The firm added that it is investing in technologies that will help it to provide precision medicine and improve patient experiences by eliminating repeated diagnostic testing, reducing the time needed for that testing, and improving patient outcomes.
"By integrating the high quality of the know-how developed by Fast Track Diagnostics into our own cutting-edge molecular diagnostics portfolio, ABL continues to strengthen and expand its presence in the field of molecular testing and precision medicine," ABL Founder and CEO Chalom Sayada said in a statement.
Siemens said in March 2024 that demand for Fast Track's tests had fallen since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of Fast Track affected a small portfolio of tests that were mostly sold in Europe. Siemens had acquired Fast Track in 2017 in a deal that included 80 platform-agnostic assays and syndromic panels.
With the exit from that business, Siemens has largely limited its molecular offerings to a selection of research-use tools.